Please note that due to software, not everything recorded in this transcript will be accurate.

Our Hymn

 John Dickson in conversation with Chris Tomlin and Ben Fielding

John Dickson – Studio:

You’re listening to me having a go at convincing some pretty special musicians to take a third-century hymn and transform it into a song for our times. The musos are feeling the weight. They know it’s an important project. They’re just not sure how it’s going to work.

Conversation tape

John Dickson – Studio:

Some listeners will know we’re talking about what we call ‘The First Hymn Project’.

We’re trying to revive an 1800 year old lyric and melody — found on a papyrus fragment catalogued as P.Oxy 1786 — and give it back to the world, to sing. You can hear more about it in episode 142 – aptly named, First Hymn. The journey started with a simple idea eight years ago, and it’s taken more than two years of pretty hard work and a great team to bring the production to completion. We’re just a few weeks from the release of the documentary. We’ve traced P.Oxy 1786 from the deserts of Egypt to the dreaming spires of Oxford. We’ve dropped in on rehearsal spaces in Sydney and set up camp in music studios in Nashville. And we’ve ended our journey in a stadium arena in Texas. You’ll get to see all of that on the big screen — or the small screen if you prefer — when The First Hymn releases … soon. Today, though, I want to take you behind the scenes — to see how we took an ancient tune and lyric and redesigned it for contemporary singing.  It wasn’t a matter of just translating the words and singing the original tune. I mean, I love the original melody, but it certainly isn’t the kind of thing we’d like today. It was certainly pop music if you were living in the 200s AD in Greco-Roman Egypt. But it’s actually pretty weird to our modern ear.  So, we had to find a way to honour the original meaning and vibe of P.Oxy 1786, while producing a song everyone could get behind today. My job used to be a singer-songwriter, but this mission was well above my paygrade! Hence the real musos I’ve been chatting with. They say, ‘No one likes to know how the sausage was made’. I hope that’s not true … because that’s what this episode is all about — how we resurrected The First Hymn.

I’m John Dickson, and this is Undeceptions

Undeceptions theme

John Dickson – Studio:

This part of the P.Oxy 1786 story begins with a meeting between a piece of papyrus and a custom-built Collings acoustic guitar.

Ben Fielding playing The First Hymn excerpt to John

John Dickson – Studio:

When I first thought about bringing this ancient song back to life, one musician was uppermost in my mind. Ben Fielding has crossed the boundaries between Christian and secular music and achieved lasting success. There aren’t many Australians who can live off writing songs for others to sing, but Ben is certainly one of them. He won a Grammy for his 2018 song ‘What A Beautiful Name’ and has also been awarded six Dove Awards – the Christian equivalent of a Grammy. He’s published over 200 songs … it’s a delight to call him my mate … he was my first call.

John Dickson:
Mate, do you remember your initial reaction when I pitched the first hymn to you?

Ben Fielding:
I do because it was sort of this, uh, really overt sense mix of like apprehension and excitement. I love the idea immediately. I mean, the idea of like capturing the oldest hymn that we know of, sung by early Christians, and being able to give that a modern life. To me, that’s just, it’s an amazing idea. And I was excited to kind of even hear more of the history of the hymn, on a personal level. But the apprehension was like, how do you do justice to something that is ancient? Like I knew there were, there was going to be ancient melody that we had, um, this ancient Greek lyric, and so I think with any creative process, there’s this sort of, sometimes the, the boundaries and limitations can be really helpful because it forces you to, um, work within limitation. But at the same time they can feel daunting. So I think I had all of that going on at the same time and just hoping we did it justice.

John Dickson:
So are you saying you, you felt this sort of weight of responsibility with trying to bring this back to life?

Ben Fielding:
I think so, and I think normally in the creative process like a song will rise and fall based on its own justification. The song sort of justifies its own existence. But in this case we were sort of setting out to say the song is going to exist. We’re going to have a modern version of the first hymn. And so now our job is to make sure it’s worth existing. So that’s kind of the opposite way to, I would normally work. So it felt like a great responsibility because, um, of the significance of the project, but was also kind of asking me to do something that I wouldn’t normally do in my creative process.

‘This I Believe’ clip

John Dickson – Studio:

Ben has shouldered this sort of responsibility once before. He’s one of the geniuses behind the gold-record making The Creed (This I Believe) which, like the First Hymn, is the translation of an ancient statement of faith into a modern worship song. It’s the Apostles Creed – an 83-word summary of Christianity – turned into a pop song!  It’s deservedly sung all over the world — I was at a conference in Finland where it was sung (in Finnish!). The song has had over 140 million plays on Spotify (when I checked just yesterday).

John Dickson:
Although you’ve done this ancient to modern thing before, uh, with your amazing hit, This I Believe, which took the Apostles Creed and, you know, represented it. Was this different or the same?

Ben Fielding:
I think the similarity is that you’re working within, um, like a pretty strict lyrical construct, um, with the creed, as you’ll remember, really trying to stay true to the, the text.

Studio – John Dickson:

We’re remembering this together because I played a small part in bringing about ‘This I Believe’ … On Jan 4, 2014, I tweeted out that some great songwriter should “do world-Christianity a massive favour” and “put the Apostles’ Creed to inspiring music”. One of Ben’s team — Hey, Cass. Hhope you’re well!! — she replied almost immediately with, “We’ll have a go!” Two months later, I met with them all for breakfast to hear the first draft of what would become this massive hit.

Ben Fielding:
I mean, the creed is, uh, something that people recite on a regular basis, so you can’t deviate too far. The difference here with the first hymn is most people would probably be completely unfamiliar with the text. But then at the same time, we really wanted to stay true to the text. to the intent of the original hymn writer, but also because it’s a song as opposed to the creed, wanting to sort of stay true to the musical intent of the writer and, sort of trying to dig into the mind of that original hymn writer about where’s the emphasis musically and lyrically, and trying to bring that into our modern interpretation.

Studio – John Dickson:

The original writer of the First Hymn emphasises God as Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You can hear all about that in our First Hymn episode from a few months ago. The first quarter of the papyrus has broken off, so the very beginning of the song is missing, sadly.  But there was plenty to translate to give Ben something to work with  …

Reading

σιγάτω

Let all be silent

μηδ’ ἄστρα φαεσφόρα 
κελαδέσθων

The shining stars not sound forth,

ποταμῶν ῥοθίων πᾶσαι.

All rushing rivers stilled,


ὑμνούντων δ’ ἡμῶν


As we sing our hymn

πᾳτέρα χ υἱὸν χ ἅγιον πνεῦμα

To the Father, Son, & Holy Spirit,

πᾶσαι δυνάμεις ἐπιφωνούντων

As all Powers cry out in answer,
  

ἀμὴν ἀμήν

“Amen. Amen.”


κράτος αἰνος ἀεὶ
  καὶ δόξα θεῷ

Might, praise, and glory forever to God

δωτῆρι μόνω
  πάντων ἀγαθῶν 

The only Giver of all good gifts.

ἀμὴν ἀμήν.

Amen. Amen.

Studio – John Dickson:

The incomplete lyrics were one thing. The melody was another. It takes you straight back to Greco-Roman Egypt – one of my happy places.

Wheaton choir singing the original First Hymn.

Studio – John Dickson:

Some of you might remember this is the original Greek version sung by the Wheaton College choir. We’ll put a link in the show notes. I think it’s beautiful. Classical musicologists recognise the melodic structure as typical of the Greek theatre or tavern.  It’s just that it’s not really pub music for us today. So that was Ben’s and his co-writer’s challenge.

John Dickson:
You had a head start on working on this, um, where did you begin? Like, what was the, can you go to that first creative moment, you sat at a piano, you picked up a guitar and what?

Ben Fielding:
Yeah, I think before I even sort of played anything, it was sort of trying to look at the, your, uh, translation of that original Greek and then just sort of conceptually trying to break down the lyric into blocks and kind of think about, well, how would you package this lyric in a modern sort of song format? So what’s a verse and, um, and you know, what’s a chorus as in what’s the sort of centerpiece of this, um, original lyric and that you could sort of repeat that would kind of, uh, it would really be the heart and soul of the song. And then probably the thing that when I did sit down and play, the first thing that really sort of jumped out to me was, um, the, the line to the only giver of all good gifts. And that felt to me like the, sort of like this centerpiece, um, or like this culmination. But then it felt like there were other lyrics that could be a better chorus. And so, I sort of had in mind straight away that there would be like … the chorus would be this sort of, as we sing our praise to the, to the God, our Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But then the bridge would be this sort of kind of, culminative kind of moment that, that brings it all together around the one, the, the, the only giver of all good gifts.

 John Dickson:
Was there a special moment or a particular melodic line that leapt out to you? Or do you love all your melodic lines equally?

Ben Fielding:
For me, it was coming to that, um, to the only giver of all good gifts and that, um, that line sort of wrote itself. Um, I actually have like the original, uh, idea when I sort of sat there and I was playing this melody and thinking actually you could sing to the only giver of all good gifts. I can show you, I’ve got like a, um, a voice note, I don’t know if you’ll be able to hear it, but this is like literally the moment that I sort of started playing it.

Voice note of Ben working on the song

Ben Fielding:
I didn’t have the, all the other lyrics or whatever, but that was sort of this initial spark of inspiration. And it just felt like the right mix of like being beautiful and pretty, but also I knew you could develop that and, um, into something that, because, you know, we only had what, 80, 80 percent or so of the original lyric. And so I knew we were going to have to fill in a few lines, but it felt like we could really kind of do something with that.

Studio – John Dickson:

The “we’” Ben is referring to is his co-writer on the First Hymn. It feels weird to call him simply the ‘co-writer’, because, as Ben would be first to tell you, this is one of the most sung singer-songwriters in the world today.  Stay with us.

BREAK 1

‘How Great Is Our God’ clip 

Studio – John Dickson:

That’s Chris Tomlin, one of the most significant creators and performers in Christian music today. Chris has sold over twelve million records and has over 7 billion streams to his name. He’s a Grammy winner with over thirty top ten hits. Its estimated that 30 million people sing Chris’ music in church every week. Time Magazine described Chris as, “… potentially the most often-sung artist anywhere.” I asked him how he felt about that.

John Dickson:
I want to ask you how this particular success feels for you. I don’t just mean Loads of people listen to your songs and stream them, but they gather together and sing them together. More than probably any artist in the world today. What’s that feel like?

Chris Tomlin:
You know, I remember when I did that interview with Time and they, then I saw that in the article and I was like, wow, I never really thought of it that way, but then it made me think of this and it made me, it, the perspective is the opposite for me. To me, that speaks to how, um, massive the church is. That’s what it says to me because, you know, when you think about all the, all the music out there and the pop artists and the, the, the big names that are, their names are so much bigger than mine and they’re like worldwide phenomenons, right? But the music of the church is so much bigger and it was the first time that, it was the first time that I really, it just connected the dots for me because I was like, “it’s true, can be the biggest pop star in the world. But there’s nothing bigger than the songs of the church, and there nothing, nothing ever will be”. This is the, you know, to be a part of that, but to be, to be, to those songs, you know, since I was a kid, my, I’ve had a, one goal, one mission, and that’s to give people a voice to worship Him. And that’s, and to see that happen has been beautiful.

Studio – John Dickson:

The same Time Magazine article tells how Chris constantly strives to bring this kind of music – what they call “worship music” — to the masses. Chris himself says he tries to craft songs in a way that a “person who’s tone-deaf and can’t clap on two and four can still sing!” It’s more than worship music. It’s public Christianity.

 John Dickson:
Can you sort of sketch how you think you got to this point of writing songs that millions of people sing?

Chris Tomlin:
You know, um, it takes me to a story I share in my concerts now. I haven’t shared it in years, but it takes me to a story when I was young. I was just in high school, just, just graduating high school and got my first opportunity to play at this youth week. This youth, this This youth conference, it was like, I say youth conference, it was this little church’s youth week and I was asked, it was the first time I was invited to play music at anything. And I said yes, I’d love to do it. And I didn’t know what I was doing, I didn’t have any songs. Well, I mean, it was, I was so … I never said a word to the audience, I just, I had all my songs on note cards on the stage, I never looked at anybody, I just sang these little simple worship choruses. And the guy speaking at the end of the week, um, this was a very, very incredible moment in my life, because, again, it’s the first thing I’ve ever done, at the end of the week he comes to me and he says, I want you to know two things, I said, okay, he said, one, you have no idea what you’re doing, and I was like, thank you, and he said, two, you have no idea how God’s going to use your songs all over the world. And I just remember looking at him like, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have any songs. I’m singing other people’s songs. And he said, as I’ve been watching you and praying this week, I feel like God is just kind of whispering to me, you’re going to write songs one day, and they’re going to be sung everywhere. And I just, and I never forget this, he put his hand on my head, just standing there, just kind of put his hand on my head, and he looked straight in my eyes and said, God, make Chris a psalm writer for his generation. And it was like, lightning went through me. it was a marking moment in my life. And, you know, it never drained it led to here. Led to all these years of songs, I mean 30 years now, of writing songs, of touring, of playing music all over the world. And, you know, what a, what an amazing thing. I come from a small little town, a nowhere town in Texas. We had a Dairy Queen and a stoplight, that was it. And, you know. I would have never dreamed that this would happen.

John Dickson:
What made you think of Chris Tomlin as the perfect collaborator?

Ben Fielding:
I’ve known Chris for a lot of years, and, I’ve had great respect for him as a, songwriter, uh, as an artist. And I think, I mean, he’s been prolific for so long. You think back to like those early songs, like even before How Great Is Our God, which just became an absolute anthem for the modern church, and then, you know, most recently like Holy Forever, which again, is just this song that, um, juggernaut song that’s been a blessing to so many people.

Studio – John Dickson:

To give you a sense of what we’re talking about … ‘How Great is Our God’ reached number one on the US Billboard Hot Christian Songs chart, won ‘Song of the Year’ at the 2006 Dove Awards and went ‘platinum’ after a million certified sales. ‘Holy Forever’ also peaked at number one and was nominated for a Grammy in 2023. They’re pretty fun bookends to an incredible career.

Ben Fielding:
But I’ve also really respected Chris as like a statesman kind of figure in music for the church, and he’s been a champion of other people’s songs, and I think he really understands when something has gravitas, something that the church needs to be singing. But he’s also this sort of neutral character. He’s sort of like a Switzerland, you know, where I think, you know, people take what Chris does. And I don’t think he’s at all a divisive kind of character. He’s such a unifying person within the church. And so he felt like the perfect person to be able to carry something like this.

John Dickson:
I know firsthand how difficult it is to get anything into the Chris Tomlin schedule. So, how did you react when Ben Fielding rang you up and said, hey, you want to rewrite something from the 200s AD?

Chris Tomlin:
Well, I love Ben. Ben’s been someone I’ve, I’ve just admired for a long time, his songwriting and just a great friend for years. And so when he called me and said, Hey, you want to do this together? I thought, what an incredible, what an amazing opportunity, what a privilege to do this. And, and then when I learned more about the song. And learn more about where this came from, and all that was happening, I was like, what a privilege. I mean, this is, this is what I’ve given my life to, right? To write, to help people sing, and why would I not want to be a part of this if, if, if I can in any way?

 John Dickson:
Did you feel intimidated at all, sort of, resurrecting something that old, or was it just excitement?

Chris Tomlin:
Complete intimidation, complete, like, I, I, I don’t want to mess this up. You know, I think, how can I, what can I don’t want to take a wrong step. This is precious. This is a precious gift from believers, early believers who literally gave their life for the gospel, gave their life for the faith that I am in now almost 2, 000 years down the road standing in the long line of. And, I, it’s just. I thought I was just gonna, I just definitely handled this with great responsibility, I think. It wasn’t like, oh yeah, that sounds great, let’s just, let’s just write something that … no. You don’t approach something like that. You, it’s very serious and, and prayerful and like, God, how would, how can I write something that could relate to today, but hopefully capture the heart of what they were singing all those years ago. Hopefully, we did that in a small way.

Studio – John Dickson:

When I left the conversation, it was now up to Ben and Chris. I mean, at one level, it was always going to be up to them. But now I had to leave them to it. My initial idea was to throw them in a room together, for days on end, until they emerged with the new ‘first hymn’. But we realised that wasn’t going to happen. Ben was in Sydney, Australia, and Chris was on tour around the US and elsewhere or in Nashville, Tennessee … the chances of them being in the same physical space anytime soon was next to zero. It was starting to look like the whole process could take six months … a year … maybe longer … this was the time Director Mark lost his hair …

But Chris and Ben found a novel way to solve the problem of distance.

Chris Tomlin:
So, through the beauty of technology now, um, and we really didn’t even, we didn’t really even Zoom or, FaceTime or anything like that. We were just sending, uh, like a little note, little notes back and forth through our phone. I would sing something, send it to him, I was like, I think this, what about this, what about this melody for this lyric? And, you know, the lyric was already there. It’s just taking, trying to find how do we sing this lyric in a way that, that feels really, you know, fresh, and today, it’s singable, and powerful, and, and so we just kept going back and forth, and it was beautiful, looking at all the voice memos, listening to them now, where, where it started, where it come, came from, and so, it was a different process for me. I’m not really good at that. I’m not, a lot of people can get on a Zoom, or they can write through technology back and forth, and I, it just never works for me. It never does. This was, I think, one of the only times. It’s always, I always kind of have to be in the room feeling it with someone. This was just It was definitely God’s Spirit connecting us through, you know, across the oceans, connecting us and writing this together.

Audio montage of Tomlin and Fielding exchanging voice memos

 John Dickson:
What’s he like to work with? I mean, I think of two powerful creatives in a room together, you know, it could be dicey.

Ben Fielding:
No, I mean, Chris is such a gentleman. Um, and I think he’s brilliant. So I’ve got a lot of respect for him and, um, and for his instincts too. And so, I think we think similarly enough and, and I knew that we’d be able to reach sort of common ground. But I think with any collaboration, the strength of it is actually those points of difference where you could go this way, and you get pulled back a little bit and vice versa. And one really good example is the original bridge melody. Chris was like, I just think it gets a bit too high. So we have to dial that back a little bit. And, um, and then his just instincts on those verses. And, um, I just really grateful for his, his input into the song because it definitely took it from something that was like a, you know, it was headed in a direction. Chris made it great.

Studio – John Dickson:

November 2023 came around, and I thought it might be time to head to Nashville to see what, if anything, had come from the songwriting. I knew nothing of this online collaboration. I wouldn’t have thought it possible. So I headed to Nashville, thinking this was going to be the beginning of the songwriting process. We had Chris and Ben in the one place for just a couple of days. I was excited to be a fly on the wall of this creative duo. We met in a writing and rehearsal space called ‘The Barn’ – it’s an old ranch converted into a musician’s paradise. When we sat down, I asked the obvious question …

Clip from ‘The First Hymn’ documentary. Ben and Chris tell John that they have finished the song.

Ben and Chris perform part of the song

Studio – John Dickson:

I – was – stunned. Here I was expecting a long drawn out process, and instead I was presented with what some might call a miraculous outcome. I asked Chris if he thought the miracle might extend further.

John Dickson:
You’ve had a lot of successful songs. Um, but I’m allowed to ask you, uh, does this first hymn feel special already? Or am I jinxing you?

Chris Tomlin:
Yeah, I never know. You know, I never ever really, really know what a song is going to do. Sometimes I thought I have and I’ve been completely wrong, but I just, you know, so I just try to approach it and say, God, this is the best I can do at this moment. And you take this offering and if it could be used, that’d be amazing.

Studio – John Dickson:

To my continued surprise, the next day, we head out to the rolling hills outside Nashville to record this song I’ve just met! Nestled among the trees is Dark Horse Studios. It is a massive, multi-story wooden edifice that perfectly blends into the surrounding bush, complete with timber towers and a dozen creative corners for musicians to hone their tunes. It’s a wonderland. Dozens of artists have turned out gold records here – Taylor Swift, Keith Urban, Hunter Hayes, Bela Flek. Inside the studio on this day were some of the best session musicians Nashville has to offer — which is to say some of the best session musos you’ll find anywhere — they were all keen to help the project out. And to top it off, we had award-winning composer-producer, Jonathan Smith. Under his expert guidance, a beautiful track began to take shape…

‘The First Hymn’ clip plays

Chris Tomlin:
I really, I always pray, God, would you put your presence on these songs? What I think marks. What, what marks the, the, the great songs is people sense God’s presence on them. You know, we’re not inventing new chords. We’re not inventing new melodies. There’s only 12 notes out there. but you say, God, would your presence touch this and would people feel your presence with it? And that’s what I hope with this, you know, I can look back on some of my songs through the years. And looking back, looking back, it may have felt obvious. Oh, yeah, that was gonna be a great song. I didn’t know it at the time. And so, this, I know the lyrics, I know the lyrics are incredible. So, hopefully, it’s written in a way people can latch on to.  And I hope, my hope and prayer is that it’s just, it reignites a fire all over the world with this song. Again, just to, because I think the story is so powerful of connecting people. People feeling connected to the early saints, you know. And, uh, that’s, what a privilege.

Studio – John Dickson:

This is not just a musical journey. It is spiritual. If you’re listening to this right now, and you’re not sure if you believe in Christianity, I still reckon you would have felt the spiritual power of this journey we’ve been on – from Egypt to Oxford to Nashville and beyond. Spiritual songs have a weird power. I mean, I reckon all songs have power, but spiritual ones take us to another place — think of those early spiritual blues songs sung by slaves or a modern gospel choir or Kings College Cambridge Choir. Go and put it on and you’ll be elevated! And if you add centuries of history to the song, it can take on even greater force. (I trust I’m not just projecting my own history-nerd experience). After the break, we’re going to set ‘The First Hymn’ in a broader context of ancient spiritual classics.

BREAK 2

St Ephram of Syria Coptic hymn

Studio – John Dickson:

That’s special. It’s an ancient hymn performed by the accomplished Arabic musician George Elzawy. You can hear that gorgeous ‘melisma’ — single syllables sung over multiple notes. But what’s being sung is an English translation of an ancient Syriac lyric by Ephrem of Edessa. He’s from the fourth century — just a little over 100 years after our First Hymn. His words have survived. Sadly, his original melody hasn’t. So the tune you’re hearing is from the medieval period. Still, very beautiful. St Ephrem was a 4th-century Christian deacon — deacon is the role one takes before becoming a priest or elder in the ancient church. Ephrem lived in the important trade city of Edessa, near the border of the Roman and Persian empires. We could do a whole show on Ephrem because he developed one of the first recorded medical ministries. In a famine of 373, he set up three hundred beds in a public portico where he and others treated the sick. The wealthy of the city were so taken with him, they showered money on the project, and it became a big deal. Sadly, he died from contracting something nasty from one of the patients. We have a lovely primary source that describes him as the supreme spiritual nerd and a friend of the sick and dying. Here’s the report:

READING  

He devoted his life to monastic philosophy; and although he received no instruction, he became, contrary to all expectation, so proficient in the learning and language of the Syrians, that he comprehended with ease the most abstruse theorems of philosophy … Later, the city of Edessa being severely visited by famine, he quitted the solitary cell in which he pursued philosophy, and rebuked the rich for permitting the poor to die around them, instead of imparting to them their excess wealth … Ephrem offered to undertake the distribution of their gifts. He had about three hundred beds fitted up in the public porches; and here he tended those who were ill and suffering from the effects of the famine, whether they were foreigners or natives of the surrounding country. On the cessation of the famine he returned to the cell in which he had previously dwelt; and, after the lapse of a few days, he expired.”
Ecclesiastical History by Sozomen, Book 3.

Studio – John Dickson:

So many in the ancient church were nerds AND social activists — Basil the Great, Macrina the Younger, Saint Augustine, and so on. Ephrem is a very cool example because he could add to his CV ‘hymn writer’. He put his philosophy – basically, very precise theological argumentation — in poems and songs so the masses could understand and remember them. He wrote over 400 songs, all designed to ward off fashionable heresies and help people imbibe the ancient truths. In the Syrian Orthodox Church, his lyrics are still revered … and sung to new tunes (well, when I say new, I mean just, say, 800 year old melodies!!!).

Maria Monteiro:
I think music and singing have been central to the experience of any ritual celebration, Christian or non-Christian, I think.

Studio – John Dickson:

Dr Maria Monteiro teaches in the music department at Baylor University. She’s a specialist in the history and sociology of spiritual music.

Maria Monteiro:
In the case of Christianity, I think we inherited those practices from the Jews who were already doing that. We can see in the Bible reference to a lot of use of singing and instruments and choirs and even the command to sing. So this is a big part of our inheritance. And I think because of singing, music has great power and the ability even to form identity. I think that was very important for the Christians to continue that practice, kind of delineating who they are sometimes in opposition to the majority around them, and I think music has this ability to not just form, but strengthen the community. So, communal singing is very important. In the case of Christians, we also know that they were singing about, you know, God and Jesus and the new doctrines and ideas that they had learned now that they are following Jesus. So, it is a very central part of any kind of ritual celebration, expressing the ideas, you know, teaching, um, like I said, strengthen the community, and remind themselves who they are, who God is, who Jesus is.

John Dickson:
In this documentary we’ve spent a lot of time, uh, thinking about the, the lyrics, the content of this ancient hymn. Um, is this one of music’s primary roles, to be educational, to inform people about ideas?

Maria Monteiro:
Yes, I think music has many roles in the life of a church and a community, and definitely I think education is one of them, formation. And I think people remember songs more than they remember sermons. And in a time, especially when not everybody was reading, there were not books everywhere. So the words of the songs would be something that will stay deep in their memories. We know from my own research, how missionaries, when they arrive in different places, new places, they were very concerned about God. Publishing some kind of collection of songs, because once they were gone, until the next preacher would come around, the community could hold on to those, uh, words and remember what they were by singing. So, I think, yes, I think that the church has many tasks, and I think proclamation is one of them. Of course, worship and praise God. To remind each other who they are and their place in the world. But also I think to, to learn the lessons, the doctrine.

FIVE MINUTE JESUS

Let’s press ‘pause’. I’ve got a five-minute Jesus for you.

In the modern world — at least in the modern popular world — music has lost its educational roots. For us today, songs are more often emotional outlets. Sometimes, they’re not even that. They’re just jingles or dance tracks.

This is not to say the ancient world didn’t have jingles. I mentioned in a previous episode the marble monument near Ephesus that has a song scratched into it in ancient Greek words and musical notation:

“As long as you live, shine, let nothing at all grieve you. Life exists only for a short while, and time demands its end.”

It’s often called a drinking song, but it might actually be a bit of a lament. Seize the day because we’re all gonna die. So, come to think of it, even the ancient jingles are kind of philosophical laments.  Here’s a real difference between modern and ancient music. Ancient music was very often seen as an emotional and mnemonic vehicle for ideas.  A tool for remembering important themes. We have an Epicurean jingle from the first century BC that sort of rhymes in Greek and goes like this:

ἄφοβον ὁ θεός,
ἀνύποπτον ὁ θάνατος,
καὶ τἀγαθὸν μὲν εὔκτητον,
τὸ δὲ δεινὸν εὐεκκαρτέρητον

(Philodemus, Against the Sophists 4.9-14)

The translation is:

“Unafraid of Deity. Unconcerned by Death. The Good well-acquired, and Trouble well-withstood.” 

You can see here that this song—what scholars actually call a ‘jingle’—is designed to teach doctrine and lock it in the students’ heads. This Epicurean philosophy 101. Basically the themes are: “Don’t fret about gods–they’ve got better things to do than think of you. Don’t fear death because death is the complete dissolution of all body and consciousness. And pursue good experiences as the remedy to the pains and sorrows of life”. That is Epicureanism in four lines. If the Epicurean student has this poem or hymn in the head, the student won’t be able to forget the core ideas of their school. And in case you’re wondering why I mentioning this, it’s because ancient Christians also saw their singing as an educational tool. Not just education. The ancients often had a nice balance between head and heart, between rote learning and creativity. Man … there’s a whole episode in that one day!!!! But just think of the book of Psalms, which is clearly the immediate back-catalogue for early Christian music. The Psalms are Hebrew songs which do two things at once: they express the depths of emotion (whether sorrow or joy) AND they teach the Jewish people about the character of God and his word. They are a psychological outlet and they’re also an educational tool. Early Christianity inherited this idea from Jesus and the apostles. And the apostle Paul makes the point explicit: songs are for joy and thanksgiving as well as ‘teaching one another’. Here’s his instruction about singing to the church at Colossae in Turkey:

“Let the Word/logos of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom….

(sounds like he’s talking about a school not a church … but then …)

as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.”
Colossians Chapter 3. 

Songs are about creativity. They are about joy and spirituality. But they are also about letting ideas, “the logos of Christ”, dwell within our hearts and our communities. They are a form of teaching. it’s true, some forms of Christianity are all head. That’s a problem. Some are all heart … and that’s a problem.  Christian songs are meant to be both. You can press ‘play’ now.

Studio – John Dickson:

Ben and Chris have composed the new First Hymn, but all the way along they’ve felt like they had someone looking over their shoulder. I don’t mean God!!

John Dickson:
There’s actually for this a kind of third composer, the original composer. Do you feel you ended up with an affinity? I mean, few people in the world have had to enter into that original song more than you.

Ben Fielding:
Yes. Yeah. I, I found myself like right through the process trying to imagine this original hymn rider. Like, what was, was it a he, was it a she, um. What were they thinking? What were they doing? Were they, who were they writing for? And so sort of trying to picture the early church and, um, I remember you saying early in the process that the song was written with, from a melodic point of view, like with this sort of, uh, tavern style. It’s a sort of song that you might hear at the local pub, um, so that there was this … it made me really think about, the original hymn writer was trying to write something that people would feel familiar with. That they could come in and they could be part of this song. They could sing it, they’d catch the melody. Like it’s almost like the, um, the song, each line would sort of finish itself. Um, and then I thought, were they kind of doing sort of what I do? Like trying to write songs that help people. people sing in worship and so I had this sort of sense that maybe we’re kind of a very like minded people and uh, so that was kind of cool and then definitely through the process wanted to honor that original intent of the songwriter.

John Dickson:
Yeah, every artist, you know, hopes the audience will go, wow, great song, but what’s the thing, put your finger on, what is the thing you hope people will go away with from this song?

Chris Tomlin:
I hope that their faith is just, is lifted up in their hearts of like, and their, their, their faith is, it grows as they sing this song because they realize, wow, I think this is one of those particular things that reminds us of like, the history of our faith, and the story of our faith, and that our faith is not 30 minutes old. You know, it’s thousands of years. And that we stand in a long line of people who have, have stood and sung these songs of worship and to think that worship is eternal. And to remember that we are in a, we are part of something eternal, that worship was going on long before you and I got here. It was going on long before those ancient Egyptians were here. It’s been going on forever, and it will go on forever. And we just, and we just continually join that song.

Studio – John Dickson:

It’s interesting. In the US, Christian music is so big that it can forget about the audience beyond the church walls. But all through this project I was conscious that The First Hymn seems to have been not just church praise but public Christianity—an attempt to make sense of Christianity to the wider world. I asked the guys about this.

John Dickson:
Were you conscious of the sort of mainstream audience, you know, the audience that may not believe any of this theological stuff? Because it’s one of the things we emphasize in the documentary, the way that the song seems to be wanting to engage beyond the church. Were you conscious of that in your own rearrangement? Um.

Ben Fielding:
I was, and in part it’s because I think of our early conversation about that being the intent of the original hymn writer. And so, that was certainly on my mind, but at the same time sort of realizing that this is like unapologetically like a … it’s a Christian hymn. And so thinking about what would obscure, the message, and I think you can obscure the message of a Christian hymn, uh, in lots of ways. One would be to make the language, um, too esoteric. And so it feels like only people that have been in church for years would understand what we’re even singing about. So we didn’t want to do that. And you could obscure the message by going the other way and sort of softening the message and watering it down to the point where it sort of doesn’t stand for anything. And I think, you Any music that’s compelling is honest and sincere, but it’s communicating something that needs to be communicated. And so hopefully what we’ve done is we’ve created something that is approachable, but that’s also honest.

John Dickson:
Do you feel that church music also has a role in challenging or inspiring doubters who might just be listening in to what happens in church?

Maria Monteiro:
I think so. I think music is very powerful and it moves, uh, emotions and sometimes, you know, I think it’s interesting. We have eyelids, but we don’t have earlids. So sometimes we may hear something, even if you are not planning on that’s different. We can always turn our face and not see something, but we can sometimes not take a while for us not to listen. And I think it’s interesting. I have heard stories of people that they were just attracted by the sound. And then they join in, and then they understand, “oh, this is what they’re saying”. And, um, again, in my research in, in Brazilian hymnody, people that said, you know, they, they would not stay for the sermon. And sometimes the missionary says, if I keep on preaching, people are going to be, be throwing things at me. But once I started playing and singing, a crowd would gather, and then that was an amazing way for people to hear the gospel. And people that have told me in their own lives how, you know, they still remember that was that one line from that song. And they didn’t understand anything about doctrine, about church, what’s a protestant, what’s a baptist, but that message of the song spoke to me.

John Dickson:
What would you hope a sceptic who hears the song and watches the documentary would gain personally?

Ben Fielding:
Well, I think firstly, um, that Christians have believed and have been singing about the Lordship of Christ for centuries, millennia, so it’s an ancient truth that stood the test of time, which doesn’t make it true, um, but at least makes it worth considering whether it might be. Um, and secondly, that the invitation of the hymn writer, which is, uh, you know, there is, uh, we live in a fallible world, fallible creation, certainly, um, the fallibility of Christians and organized religion, but like the hymn writer invites us to do, let all of that be silent and let God, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, the only giver of all good gifts, be at the centre. So the invitation, I think, to the sceptic is to go, What about if you just for a ​​moment, just consider the goodness of God?

Studio – John Dickson:

We recorded this interview backstage at a venue in December last year. Later that night, Chris and Ben would give the first public performance of the new First Hymn in front of more than 10,000 people and nine cameras so we could capture it for our documentary. Ben was calm enough – he’s a very cool cat, and he’s done stadium gigs before. But I had to ask how he was feeling about reaching this culmination of the First Hymn Project.

John Dickson:
I can’t believe here we are on the day, about to perform this for the first time tonight. Yeah. Um, Wow. I’ll go back to that first conversation I had with you in the cafe. How are you feeling today?

Ben Fielding:
I think back to the, that moment in the cafe where you were sort of originally pitching the idea and to think that tonight, you know, in front of thousands of people this song will be sung for the first time … it’s been quite a journey and, uh, you know, I couldn’t be more excited to hear hopefully people singing this song back because that was certainly the intent was to give this song back to the modern church and then to, you know, imagine early Christians singing this song, what, nearly 1800 years ago, um, that we can still sung today the same words in unity is unbelievable.

Clip of the ‘First Hymn’ live for the first time

Chris Tomlin: 
I think this song connects us to the early days of the church starting. And I just hope, you know, in a day where it feels like, um, you know, the church is being pushed down and pushed down and pushed down it’s a moment, I think, to remember where this song came from. In the midst of the church being persecuted and, you’re talking about pushed down, people losing their life. And yet, to stand there boldly and to boldly say, though this, we’re worshiping the God of all creation. All powers bow to him, everything bows to him, to the only giver of all good gifts. Amen. To have that kind of boldness in the midst of a culture that just wants to, just like, Push away and you’re, when you’re always going upstream, you’re always, it’s completely counterculture to be, to be a person of faith, to stand there and say, in the midst of that, I’m calling, I’m saying to the only one, to the one who’s every power bows down to, that everything be silent before him. That is what a powerful thing.

Studio – John Dickson:

Years of imagining … months and months of hard work from my team and from Chris and Ben. For me the First Hymn represents Christianity before there were denominations – it’s a point of unity. It demonstrates that from the very beginning, Christianity revolved around the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It’s also a testament to the confidence of the ancient Church right in the middle of their period of persecution in the middle of the 200s AD. At times they were being hunted down, but here they were singing with joy and exuberance and inviting all creation to stand still and take notice. The new song will drop internationally at Easter on Spotify, Apple Music and all the usual channels. The documentary will make its way around the world in stages — it premieres in Los Angeles, Washington, and London … just at easter time … until it reaches my home, Australia mid year for a whole host of cinema events. I can’t wait to be there. And eventually you’ll see it on various streaming platforms, for individuals and groups. So, stay tuned. We’ll let you know when you can hear and see everything.

See ya!